~ ~ ~
Rani approached the kitchen, where Jet was getting a soda, and set his physician’s bag down on the dining room table.
“What’s the prognosis?” she asked, popping the top of the can.
“He’s mending. He’s not completely out of the woods yet, but he’s making excellent progress. No sign of sepsis, and the pain is manageable. All in all, I would say our David is a very lucky man,” Rani concluded, eying her as he reached for a box of cookies he had brought, along with lunch meats, fruit, more juice and sodas – plus a plethora of junk food she wouldn’t have eaten if a gun had been held to her head. “You want some? They’re really good,” he offered, holding the box up.
“No, thanks. I’m saving mine for after dinner.”
He looked at her as though he didn’t understand, then shrugged and popped one into his mouth.
She came around the counter and sat opposite him.
“How soon will it be safe for him to move?”
“Realistically, I’d say he can walk around starting tomorrow, and within another few days, he should be good to go, with the provision that he doesn’t overdo it.” He licked his lips in search of stray crumbs, then added, “It’s going to take some time for him to get back to a hundred percent.”
“How long?”
Rani frowned in thought as he dispatched the last morsel of cookie. “A week, maybe more. But he’ll be out of danger by tomorrow. Why?”
“We can’t hang around here forever.”
“Nonsense. Take as long as you need. You’re welcome to stay…well, until the renters show up in a few weeks, anyway. I rent it out most of the holidays and all summer. You won’t believe what people will pay.” Rani stood and took a final lingering look at the cookies. “The good news is that he’s healing and making great progress, and I think we can say he’s turned the corner. Considering where he was a few days ago, that’s a kind of small miracle.”
“I know.”
A few minutes after Rani left, David called out from the bedroom.
Jet padded down the hall and stood in the doorway, head tilted. “What?”
“I think I’ve figured it out.”
“You did? Are you going to tell me?”
“I’m not sure where to start. But this all revolves around the last operation you were on. The Algiers sanction,” he explained.
She moved to the chair and sat down. “I don’t understand. Those were terrorist financiers…”
“You already know that field operatives don’t get all the details. They don’t have the need to know. In Algiers, they were indeed terrorist financiers – at least, that’s what our intelligence said. The CIA corroborated it. But what’s important for this discussion isn’t what they were doing with their money. It’s where the money came from.”
“What do you mean?”
“All the targets in Algiers were involved in the oil industry. Between them, they represented a host of oil interests from around the world. The terrorism business lost a lot of funding that day, but that’s not the only industry that took a hit. So did five significant oil producers. The men in question were at the highest levels of their respective groups.”
“So what? I don’t get it. Of course they got their funding from oil. Look at where they were from. Iran. Saudi Arabia–”
“And one was from England, where, among other things, he represented a company called Lunosol, which was a subsidiary of another company, ultimately owned by Grigenko.”
“And…?”
“I should just start at the beginning. Four years ago, a major new oil field was discovered in Belize. It increased the country’s known reserves by a factor of ten or more. It was kept secret by the company that did the prospecting, which isn’t unusual – the business is cutthroat, and if word of something like this leaked, it would have been a major game changer for everyone with prospecting rights. And there are quite a few large players with rights there. Anyway, the field was discovered by a group that had been nosing around in the boonies for months, and when they confirmed it, a few days after they reported it to headquarters, everyone associated with the find went down in a helicopter crash. Nobody lived that knew about it. So the secret was safe. The government didn’t know, and neither did any competitors.”
“Okay, but what does that have to do with Algeria?”
“I’m getting to that. The CIA had a mole in the company, who tipped it off – the engineer on the project, who earned pocket money being a source in Central America for the agency. But he was working multiple angles, because he apparently told one of the targets at the Algiers meeting – a man who was an active threat to Israel. I don’t know how the Mossad got wind of it, probably our own informant, but someone at a very high level decided that it was in our interest to keep the find quiet. Again, even I don’t have all the information – the same need to know applies to me as did to you. What I was told is what I’ve just told you, but with an additional piece of information. The Algeria strike solved several problems for us – we got rid of some nasty characters that were propagating misery, and the secret died in the explosion at the house. And that’s where it should have ended.”
She understood.
“But it didn’t, did it?”
“Apparently not. My hunch is that Grigenko has his own mole in the Mossad – not completely impossible given the penetration we’ve seen by the KGB. The two intelligence services were closer than most people realize – myself included, until I’d been in the game for a while. Anyway, I think eliminating the team was him doing housecleaning in anticipation of making a move – one that involves the oil discovery. He couldn’t be sure how much I knew, or how much detail I shared with the team. In that scenario, the safest thing would be–”
“To eliminate everyone who isn’t loyal to him who could know anything about it,” she finished for him.
“Exactly. Including me.”
She nodded. “That’s why the push to kill me, even though I was officially dead. If I was still alive, there was another risk of a leak, and they couldn’t have that floating out there…”
“Correct. If my guess is right, they staged the robbery to get anything I had in the way of records – which turned out to be a dead end. There’s no way I would keep anything operational about the team on a computer. But they found enough to start them on a hunt that led to you.”
“How would they know who was on the team? How could they get that information?”
“There are only a few people in the Mossad who know. I think it’s pretty safe to say that one of them is Grigenko’s mole. But anyone we’re talking about is so highly placed that there’s no way they will ever get caught.” David paused, thinking. “Which isn’t your battle.”
She reached out and touched his arm. “It’s not yours anymore, either, David. Unless you make it yours.”
He waved the comment away.
“Grigenko is the common element. I never told you about his brother because there was no need to know, and it wouldn’t have changed anything. But if he’s escalated and is now operating hit squads…if he knew you were on the team, he might have also discovered that you killed his twin brother. In that case, it would make this about blood, not just money. And it would also explain why he went the extra distance to exterminate us. Because it’s personal. You pulled the trigger…and I planned the op.”
“What did you find on the network?”
“I installed a program that logs everyone that accesses certain areas. It’s transparent – it does the logging invisibly and is impossible to detect. Let’s just say that I’m surprised by some of the areas that one of the deputy directors has been poking around in. Looking at the dates, he accessed the files a couple of weeks ago. A week and a half later, the team is dead, and I’ve been attacked. It’s not open and shut – there are probably a dozen reasons he could contrive to explain why he was accessing those dossiers. On the surface, it could be innocent. But I don’t think so. The timing…”
/> “You’re saying that there isn’t enough to build a case against him.”
“Not with just this. It would take a lot more. He’s been with the Mossad longer than I’ve been alive. These people always have wheels within wheels. The director would need to authorize a massive surveillance effort, and given the level of expertise we’re talking, it wouldn’t show anything, especially if he was only passing information to Grigenko for the money. Unlike a double agent, there would be no pattern. For all we know, this could be a one-shot deal.”
“But the money would leave a trail, wouldn’t it?”
“Not likely. Remember, we’re talking about someone who has been living and breathing tradecraft his entire life. No way would there be anything to follow.”
They sat awhile, considering David’s theory.
Jet rose, an expression on her face he knew too well.
“I want to take him down.”
“Who? The deputy director?”
“No. Grigenko.”
David shook his head. “You’ll never be able to get to him. He’s too insulated.”
“Everyone can be gotten to.”
“Not this guy.”
“I’ll find a way. We will find a way.”
He knew that look, and knew better than to try to argue it.
“He’s one of the richest men in Russia,” David reminded her.
“Rich men bleed, too.”
“It would be suicide.”
“David. Please. This is just a logistical problem. It can, and will, be done – by me. The only question is whether I have to do it alone, or whether you’ll help.” Her face took on a determined expression. “I want to bring the pain to him. We need to figure out what he’s doing, what triggered this. It has to be something to do with Belize, otherwise there would be no rush to execute the team. So let’s put our energy toward trying to figure out what he’s up to. We may be able to use it against him, draw him out. In any case, if he’s the problem, then he’s got to go or we’ll never be safe. A man like that, with unlimited power and money…it’s either him or us. Don’t you see that?”
“It’s just so…he really is untouchable.”
“Not anymore.”